Intel is Still Your Friend!

 Intel is Still Your Friend!

Yes, I know he's expensive, but I still love this guy!!

I feel the need to share a disclaimer before making my assertion that Intel is still worth taking: I don't generally fly bomber fleets, and that's been historically true way before any rule changes. I want to share that because the context is really important; a lot of folks who think Intel is now worthless are those who are used to Intel making their bombers impossible to pin down.

So while I can absolutely appreciate that the nerf to Intel hit some folks and their fleet lists pretty hard, I am not one of them. For anybody who is unaware, Intel is a squadron trait that was changed with the advent of the so-called 1.5 rules several months back. Intel used to read: "While an enemy squadron is at distance 1 of you, it has Heavy." This meant that creating a bubble or pocket of Intel would ensure that friendly bombers could bomb enemy ships with impudence. It was incredibly frustrating for anyone to try and pierce that bubble when it was generated by a squadron that was protected squadrons with Escort (the Biggs ball which featured Jan Ors, for instance) and to be eating ordnance from bombers the whole time. It was part of the game and we worked around it the best we could.

But now, Intel no longer grants enemy squadrons Heavy; it now grants friendly squadrons Grit. And while I think it's a really strong change (as well as one that makes way more sense thematically), I can appreciate that it really hurt the way some people fly. However, I've heard a lot of people now dismiss Intel out of hand as being useless or pointless, and I vehemently disagree with that assessment.

I'll happily cede that it's not as strong as it was before, but there are three things I appreciate about the change. The first is the fact that Intel never made sense thematically. I know it's quibbling, but it always bothered me that a bomber could be smothered by a cloud of A-Wings, but keep swinging at a ship anyway because one Intel-granting squadron was nearby. It really runs very much counter to the way squadron play was designed: engagement prevents bombers from doing their job because they're too busy avoiding enemy squadrons trying to blow them up. The second thing is that it means smaller squadron groups are more valuable in the face of a fleet fielding 134 points of squadrons. They'll still lose that battle, but now they may actually buy you a round in which the enemy bombers are tied down and can't hit your ships. The third and final reason is personal preference: I simply don't like when there's a "right way" to build a fleet or outfit a ship. It feels very limiting and just isn't very interesting to me. So when a card or squadron is an "auto-include," that feels like subpar design to me. The Intel trait was invaluable and very much an auto-include with bomber fleets, because ignoring engagement is just too valuable to pass up. Look at Anakin and how strong his ability is! If he's just a two dice bomber who rerolls his dice and has two Brace tokens, he's strong, but he's not Public Enemy Number One. I've never seen a match wherein Anakin isn't the highest priority target. Because spending a Brace token to ignore engagement is HUGE for a bomber.

Now that I've listed all of the reasons why I'm glad about the change to Intel (which others have done as well, so you may not yet have read anything new in my praising the 1.5 version of Intel), I want to dig a little bit into why I'm still really fond of Intel. I've been flying Hondo Ohnaka for a couple of years now. He's half of the squadron ace duo I feature in the Tarkin fleet that I fly competitively and did for nearly the entirety of the last competitive season sanctioned by FFG (the other half being IG-88; this is a link to that fleet list). In flying this duo for as long as I have, I've noticed a couple of things that sort of prompted me to write this post.

1. There is a long list of instances in which an opponent forgot that Hondo had Grit because they were fixated on his special ability or the fact that he's a Rogue Bomber. The result being that they threw Shara or some beefy squadron at him with the intention of slowing him down and locking him up. "Sure, you can activate my squadron, but you're still stuck there" (is what they would say if they were being mean about it, I imagine). The result was that they committed one squadron to locking him down, at which point, Hondo promptly flew away.
2. There is an even longer list of instances in which an opponent remembered that Hondo had Grit and committed at least two squadrons to pinning him down, but then forgot mid-game, left Hondo with only one squadron to keep him locked down, only to facepalm when Hondo promptly flew away.
3. Any enemy squadrons focused on keeping Hondo away from valuable pieces are squadrons either not attacking IG-88 while he's headhunting or not attacking my ships (because my ships don't like that).
4. Every one out of two games I play, I find myself wishing that IG-88 had Grit so he could promptly fly away from that single squadron who is keeping him from wherever he wants to be.

I don't know that this relates to what I was saying, but I just think it's funny. You should too.

I think Grit isn't particularly flashy as far as key words go, and so its value tends to fly under the radar. It doesn't really break a rule so much as it bends one. The result is that its benefit can feel very niche, and when an effect is niche, we often find ourselves in one of two camps: we either dismiss it because those circumstances don't happen often enough to warrant inclusion, or we become so focused on setting up those circumstances that we fall into the trap of making bad tactical decisions.

So now we have an ability that's been nerfed (Intel) from auto-include status by having it grant an ability that is often considered a bonus rather than a necessity (Grit), and thus, the fall from grace. I won't argue that the new version of Intel is stronger than the old one, because it clearly isn't. However, it does give you quite a lot more control over your gameplan! Whenever your squadron creates a debuff bubble (such as Luminara or Gar Saxon), there's an element of your counting on the enemy grouping together obligingly. Sure, you can try and jump your opponent's squadrons before they have a chance to split up, or you can plant yourself somewhere you anticipate they want to land, but you still need your opponent to be somewhat obliging. But when your squadrons create a buffing bubble (such as Plo Koon or the new version of Jan Ors), you get to land your squadrons as needed within that area buff. And obviously, the more control you can exercise over the game, the more likely you are to win. After all, that's why we so frequently include dice mitigation upgrades in our fleets, right? And why the players who are best at navigating their ships and squadrons are the ones who are also the best players in the game.

So now, we have an Intel ability that is a buff instead of a debuff, which means you've got more control over how much of an impact it has on your match. I don't have to worry about whether or not your squadrons fly into the morass I'm trying to create so they become Heavy: I just plant my Intel-generating squadron wherever they are best suited to grant my squadrons Grit so they become more difficult for you to manage. Technically, this means the area of effect on Intel has increased to distance 2 in every direction. Why do I say that? Because any friendly squadron at the very, very edge of distance 1 from a Grit-granting source now has Grit, and that affects enemy squadrons at the very, very edge of distance 1 from those squadrons that now have Grit. In other words, an enemy squadron outside of the distance 1 area of effect of Intel was unaffected by it prior to the Intel nerf. But now, even if your squadrons are outside distance 1 of someone with Intel like Kit Fisto, if those squadrons are engaged with my V-19s and Y-Wings who now have Grit because of Kit, those squadrons are still impacted by Intel. So yes, Intel has been nerfed. But its AOE has effectively doubled in size since the rule change!

Again: I'll never try to argue that Intel is better in a vacuum now than it was before the nerf. But I will argue that it is better for the game overall, and that while its overall impact was nerfed, there is benefit we didn't have before owing to the AOE expansion. Context becomes everything for Intel. So to that end, where would I use Intel? Honestly, I think that question could be better answered by the folks over at Cannot Get Your Ship Out or Steel Strategy (both of which can now be found at Blissfully Ignorant Gaming!) with their various squadron/ace breakdowns. But I do want to lay out this one scenario: I've got a lot of flimsy squadrons that I want to see dead. But I want to see them dead on my terms. Why? Because I'm flying a General Grievous fleet. I've put together a fleet called "Dead Man's Party."

What can I say? I hear it on my Halloween Pandora station every year and it's become a favorite...

You can click on the link and see the list and the rationale here, but basically, I've got DFS-311 in there to grant my variety of squadrons Grit. It features of tar pit of 5 Vultures and 6 Hyenas (that's including DFS-311, DBS-404, and Baktoid Prototypes). Could an opponent just get in, kill the Vultures, and get out? It's certainly possible, and I don't discount the possibility, since I haven't tested this fleet yet! But in this case, it's not enough to *just* kill the Vultures and leave someone like Shara sitting there to handle the remaining Hyenas, because my squadrons don't all have to be in a complete cluster - they can sit a little further out in different directions because DFS-311 affects them all just the same. And if they're busy trying to kill my squadrons, not only are they not attacking my ships, but they're also giving me back my defense tokens (particularly the Scatter tokens on DFS-311 and my Hyena aces). Not exactly cause for my opponent to celebrate. I still have to try this out, so I can't proclaim "It works!" I'm just laying out a scenario in which granting all of those Vultures and Hyenas Grit will prove supremely useful. Especially if they're centered around an obstacle that DFS-311 is just sitting on, thus obstructing all incoming attacks and forcing a reroll on a particularly ugly incoming attack die.

I'm going to lay out another scenario: a friend of mine likes running MSU with a nasty medium to large squadron ball. More often than not, his fleets feature a Biggs Ball. I had mentioned the usefulness of Intel, and he is considering saving himself 7 points by taking a regular HWK-290 instead of Jan because Intel is now a luxury as opposed to a necessity. His Biggs Ball still has Escort, so he'd rather save the 7 points by taking a regular HWK (who, incidentally, also doesn't count against his Ace limit) and give up the little bit of added protection Jan offers. Also, killing the HWK nets an opponent 7 fewer points. And, again, as Intel is a luxury now rather than a necessity, killing the HWK is no longer a "must" for opponents, which makes target priority a tougher decision for them.

Are these specific situations? Absolutely. But the best players in the game are excellent at setting up specific situations that best serve their fleets in order to attain the 10-1 wins that help balance out the 7-4 or 8-3 wins they rack up in less-than-ideal circumstances that would otherwise bring down their overall tournament score. As long as you don't sacrifice tactical advantages in order to set up your ideal situation, there's no reason not to pursue setting up these niche situations to benefit your play. So it's true that Intel has been nerfed, but I genuinely believe that the best players are the ones who still see the value in Intel and either leverage it for their own benefit, or prepare for it so they are not taken unawares and punished for their oversight.